Interview: Larry Graham - Sheer Energy

“When I hear other bass
players playing like
me,” says Larry Graham—the
funk god who invented and
popularized the electric-bass
slapping-and-popping technique
with Sly and the Family Stone
in the late 1960s—“I just think,
‘There’s another one of my
children!’”

That’s a lot of kids. The technique—
heard in megahits such
as “I Want to Take You Higher”
and “Thank You (Falettinme Be
Mice Elf Agin)”—won Graham
a page in music history and
went on to become a cornerstone
technique for players from
Stanley Clarke to Bootsy Collins,
Marcus Miller, Les Claypool,
Flea, Doug Wimbish, and
Victor Wooten, each of whom
has spawned his own fanatical
following, thus exponentially
increasing Graham’s influence.
Indeed, although Graham prefers
to call the technique “thumpin’
and pluckin’,” it’s no overstatement
to say that his playing has
impacted the world of electric
bass with the same force and
universality that Jimi Hendrix’s
did for the electric guitar.

Graham has been leading his
own Graham Central Station
band for nearly four decades now,
and his first album in more than
a decade, Raise Up, proves the
legend hasn’t slowed down a bit.
With newly recorded versions of
GCS classics like “It’s Alright”
and “Now Do U Wanta Dance,”
as well as fresh new tracks like
“Throw-N-Down the Funk,”
Raise Up both frames the breadth
of Graham’s legacy and demonstrates
his band’s potent live
sound. In addition, the album
features cool cameos by players
such as Raphael Saadiq and
Prince—who plays drums, keyboards
and backing vocals on the
title track, and lays down liquid
lead-guitar tracks on “Shoulda
Coulda Woulda.” Throughout,
GCS churns out funk fire and
finesse, with Graham dialing up
fuzzy, phased tones in spots, and
longtime guitarist William Rabb
and blazing new drummer Brian
Braziel turning in dazzling performances
on a furiously funky
cover of the Stevie Wonder classic
“Higher Ground.”

“I’m very fortunate,” says
Graham. “All of our players
were raised on my music, and at
the same time they’re very open
to progression. So they can
play the old stuff as close to the
originals as possible, but when
it’s time for where we’re going
next, they’re all right there.”

We recently spoke to
Graham, 66, about his pioneering
playing and the influence
he’s had on the world of bass
guitar. Like many veterans
who’ve been at it their whole
lives, he’s at the point where gear
and tone settings are secondary
or even tertiary to feel and vibe.
He prefers to let his recent music
speak for itself, but he was more
than happy to talk about the cataclysmic
funk that one inspired
player with fantastically attuned
hands and ears can deliver.

You get a really full-throated
tone on the new album. How
do you capture your sound in
the studio?
I close-mic the amps in the
studio—because I want that
amp sound—but I still record
direct, as well, because I want
the cleanness and the power
and the punch from the direct
sound. Once I record them, I
blend the two by ear to make
it sound the way I want it. It’s
different, live: I don’t mic the
amps onstage, although I do
send a direct signal out of the
back of two of the amps to the
mixing board.

What were you trying to
accomplish with Raise Up?
I intended it to be a complete
piece, like a book, with a great
beginning, a body of content in
the middle, and a great conclusion.
The idea was to create a
complete journey. That’s why
I wanted to include some of
the early GCS stuff, as well as
the current stuff. It’s also why
I wanted to include Prince—because of this close connection
between him and me—and also
Raphael Saadiq, being out of
Oakland, and Stevie Wonder,
being such a close friend and
having done so many things
together. I think it really says
what I’m all about. If you were
to pick up a book and read
about me, that’s what it would
sound like!

Can you tell us a bit about
your songwriting process?
A lot of it’s just singing the
parts into a tape recorder before
I even get a chance to sit down
with the instrument. Sure, if
I’m at an instrument—say, a
guitar—I’ll play the chords,
like I did when I wrote “Ole
Smokey,” which is a guitar-type
tune. Songs like “Today” or
“Just Be My Lady” or “Hold
You Close” are things I wrote
on the piano. A song like
“Hair” is obviously built around
the bass, so it was written on
the bass. “Got to Go Through
It to Get to It” is built around
a pretty intricate drum beat,
so in that case the beat came
first. I’ve been blessed to have
learned quite a few instruments,
and though I’m not a master
of those instruments—no
one’s going to ask me to be the
drummer in their band—I can
lay down the parts I hear in my
head, and many times I’ll even
keep those parts in the final
recordings. If I record something
at home that works great
and I can’t seem to duplicate it,
I’ll keep that, too. I played guitar
before the bass, and I played
the drums before that—so, I’m
not locked into any one method
of songwriting. However [the
song] comes, I’m going to move
forward from that.

Over all these years, you’ve
steadfastly stuck to calling
your revolutionary technique
“thumpin’ and pluckin’.” Let’s
talk about why you like to
make that distinction.
Well, it really is thumpin’ and
pluckin’! You can give it another
name, but it’s still thumpin’
and pluckin.’ When you hit
the string with the side of
your thumb, you’re thumpin’
it more than slapping it, and
when you’re poppin’ that G
string, like I do on “Thank You
(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),”
you’re really pluckin’ it. Y’know,
for people who aren’t musicians,
I can understand why they don’t
understand that—and they can
call it anything they want, as
long as they’re referring to the
same technique. I’m sure that
in the future, some new names
will get added—I’ve heard
“pop bass,” and “chopper bass,”
which is what some people call
it in Japan. There’s a whole list
of names, depending on where
you live, but when you see and
hear it, it’s all the same thing.

Larry Graham lays down the funk with Sly and the Family Stone at the Woodstock
Festival in 1969. Photo by Jason Laure (Frank White Photo Agency)

Has the style you developed
way back in the ’60s changed
much over the years?
My technique is fundamentally
the same as it was back in the
late ’60s, because my heart
hasn’t changed—and when I
play, I play from the heart. Of
course, you grow in your understanding
of harmony, your
grasp of different feels, and you
benefit from exposure to other
people’s music. I mean, since I
came up with this style, we’ve
all lived through so many different
genres and styles, and the
way that I play the bass has now
spread throughout all genres of
music. So, my style is basically
the same, but everything I’ve
experienced as a person, as a listener,
and as a player all comes
out in my playing now.

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